Generating random MAC addresses at a device may allow a degree of anonymity when a user communicates with public access points (APs), such as found in commercial and shopping areas. Many stores track where customers go inside the store and how long they spend in each section of the store by analyzing the access points that communicate with a customer's smart device. If a customer moves around in the store, they connect to a different access point and the store can determine where the customer has gone and how long they spent in each section. This knowledge is usually obtained without the customer's consent or the customer having to enable this with their device. The access points record the MAC addresses transmitted in normal 802.11 probe broadcast requests that are transmitted when Wi-Fi is enabled on the customer's device. This is a privacy concern. One approach is to have the customer's device generate random pseudo-MAC addresses that look like a genuine MAC address but are not the actual MAC address of the user's device. A challenge, however, is the risk of collisions since MAC addresses need to be unique. If a duplicate MAC address is detected by the network, an error occurs causing network disruption.